This is the journey of a victim of felony fraud and embezzlement left homeless by builder, Robert M. Huckins who was given 27 years in jail,suspended,on the proviso he return $82,200, in $114 per week payments. Sometimes sad, sometimes pensive, sometimes with sarcastic humor, it chronicles the apathy within the New Mexico Judicial system and New Mexico State Government towards victims of white collar crime and the sheer audacity of the criminals who believe that the world owes them something.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

"A Fragile Flower" Easily Crushed By Self Concern

I woke up so stiff and hurting I couldn't even walk. Autumn came with some pretty cold wet fingers when I still need the warmth of summer.A bout of sneezing wouldn't stop, and when you combine sneezing with shivering there really isn't any act to follow it. I spent all of last winter with sever pneumonia and I am praying that I don't have a recurrence this winter.By 11 am it still looked as dark and dingy - and cold, still in the 40's, and my body isn't functioning well sleeping in these temperatures. It was almost 60 degree's by 1 pm. hallelujah.. a heat wave! But the forecast for today is heavy storms and 15 mph winds, and by 1 pm that storm was coming over the Sierra Blanca with a dark anger. I managed to unload alfalfa and get the hay rack full before the storm arrived, so I wouldn't have to plow through mud carrying hay.It didn't start raining until 3.45 pm... but when it did.. it poured with thunder, lightening and... flooding. All afternoon and all evening.

(Looking back to LAST winter I was saying that it was a heat wave when it got UP to 7 degree's. *Sigh*)

This cold snap isn't going to be a pleasant time for people trying to function without a home. Myself and others.Twitter is turning into a very interesting media. Virgin owner Richard Branson was on 3 pm GMT.

Reading the comments is certainly giving me insight into human nature and the state of the economy. This is one article of interest sent via twitter today:

The Limits Of Empathy

We are surrounded by people trying to make the world a better place. Peace activists bring enemies together so they can get to know one another and feel each other’s pain. School leaders try to attract a diverse set of students so each can understand what it’s like to walk in the others’ shoes. Religious and community groups try to cultivate empathy.

As Steven Pinker writes in his mind-altering new book, “The Better Angels of Our Nature,” we are living in the middle of an “empathy craze.” There are shelf loads of books about it: “The Age of Empathy,” “The Empathy Gap,” “The Empathic Civilization,” “Teaching Empathy.” There’s even a brain theory that we have mirror neurons in our heads that enable us to feel what’s in other people’s heads and that these neurons lead to sympathetic care and moral action.

There’s a lot of truth to all this. We do have mirror neurons in our heads. People who are empathetic are more sensitive to the perspectives and sufferings of others. They are more likely to make compassionate moral judgments.

The problem comes when we try to turn feeling into action. Empathy makes you more aware of other people’s suffering, but it’s not clear it actually motivates you to take moral action or prevents you from taking immoral action.

In the early days of the Holocaust, Nazi prison guards sometimes wept as they mowed down Jewish women and children, but they still did it. Subjects in the famous Milgram experiments felt anguish as they appeared to administer electric shocks to other research subjects, but they pressed on because some guy in a lab coat told them to.

Empathy orients you toward moral action, but it doesn’t seem to help much when that action comes at a personal cost. You may feel a pang for the homeless guy on the other side of the street, but the odds are that you are not going to cross the street to give him a dollar.

There have been piles of studies investigating the link between empathy and moral action. Different scholars come to different conclusions, but, in a recent paper, Jesse Prinz, a philosopher at City University of New York, summarized the research this way: “These studies suggest that empathy is not a major player when it comes to moral motivation. Its contribution is negligible in children, modest in adults, and nonexistent when costs are significant.” Other scholars have called empathy a “fragile flower,” easily crushed by self-concern.

Some influences, which we think of as trivial, are much stronger — such as a temporary burst of positive emotion. In one experiment in the 1970s, researchers planted a dime in a phone booth. Eighty-seven percent of the people who found the dime offered to help a person who dropped some papers nearby, compared with only 4 percent who didn’t find a dime. Empathy doesn’t produce anything like this kind of effect.

Moreover, Prinz argues, empathy often leads people astray. It influences people to care more about cute victims than ugly victims. It leads to nepotism. It subverts justice; juries give lighter sentences to defendants that show sadness. It leads us to react to shocking incidents, like a hurricane, but not longstanding conditions, like global hunger or preventable diseases.

Nobody is against empathy. Nonetheless, it’s insufficient. These days empathy has become a shortcut. It has become a way to experience delicious moral emotions without confronting the weaknesses in our nature that prevent us from actually acting upon them. It has become a way to experience the illusion of moral progress without having to do the nasty work of making moral judgments. In a culture that is inarticulate about moral categories and touchy about giving offense, teaching empathy is a safe way for schools and other institutions to seem virtuous without risking controversy or hurting anybody’s feelings.

People who actually perform pro-social action don’t only feel for those who are suffering, they feel compelled to act by a sense of duty. Their lives are structured by sacred codes.

Think of anybody you admire. They probably have some talent for fellow-feeling, but it is overshadowed by their sense of obligation to some religious, military, social or philosophic code. They would feel a sense of shame or guilt if they didn’t live up to the code. The code tells them when they deserve public admiration or dishonor. The code helps them evaluate other people’s feelings, not just share them. The code tells them that an adulterer or a drug dealer may feel ecstatic, but the proper response is still contempt.

The code isn’t just a set of rules. It’s a source of identity. It’s pursued with joy. It arouses the strongest emotions and attachments. Empathy is a sideshow. If you want to make the world a better place, help people debate, understand, reform, revere and enact their codes. Accept that codes conflict.

So what happened to these people who knowingly watched one man financially rape so many women, and who said not a word to stop him from victimizing more? Or any criminal for that matter? Those individuals who knowingly watched women subjected to the worst inhumanity, continued cruelty for years and never attempt to stop it?

"A fragile flower" easily crushed by self concern. Was the fact that THEY would not become homeless enough to make them ignore the plights of others?

"Silence is the voice of complicity."Fr. Roy Bourgeois

I decided to delay going to the Lazy J until tomorrow, praying that tonight and tomorrow morning will warm up considerably.There has to be someone related to Robert & Sylve Huckins must have some means to reach them, if it be Michael Huckins, Dr.Kenneth Ogilvie ( Diana Huckins? Dominic Huckins? Malcolm Huckins? ) or Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins and get them to return ALL of the money they stole from us so that I can buy a home and get our lives back.I don't believe I have EVER witnessed any none violent crime that can be as devastating as stealing someone's home. I am walking in Dorothy McKeevers footsteps, day by day, month by month, year by year.

Liam Griffin, I sat in your law office with two witnesses as you gave me your promise, your guarantee, that our money would be returned before harm came to us.Patricia Ogilvie-Huckins you were present the day I signed contract with your son. You walked out of the kitchen with Sylvi Huckins and your son introduced me to you. He told you that I was the British horse trainer he had told you about, the one he was going to build the home and barn for. Why didn't you say something? There may be a rational and reasonable explanation but I have spent over 3 years, homeless, not understanding it. I understand it even less knowing that though I was a total stranger, both Dorothy McKeever and Sally Canning you KNEW, and you knew what your son had done to them and others.

Dr. Kenneth Ogilvie, I contacted you and simply asked for a reference, not knowing that Robert Huckins was your cousin. Robert Huckins had just stolen over $30,000 from the domestic violence shelter, HEAL, yet everyone was trying to hide it. There was a history of stealing large amounts of money. $65,000 PLUS from Nancy Canning. $89,000 PLUS from Dorothy McKeever. The list just goes on and on and on.

Today Robert Huckins has his own home...He also has OUR home.....He also has a lot of people's money...And his freedom.Women are not banks or loan institutions. Women should not be the source of a retirement fund for people who don't want to do an honest day's work for an honest day's pay. Holding women hostage while playing with the judicial system, a horrendous game of cat and mouse extending YEARS, with the victims whose very homes, families and stability are in jeopardy is cruelty, as cruel as a physical beating. It is financial and emotional RAPE. Homelessness is not justice. It is a slow, painful death.Please, I beg with everything I have within me, please convince Robert Huckins to stop this torture and return the building fund he stole from us so we too, can have a home.Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you. ~ Carl Sandburg